Buyers were back for the owner of British Airways after progress was made with its tricky industrial relations in Spain.

International Consolidated Airlines Group, which also owns the loss-making Spanish carrier Iberia, improved by 5¾p to 179½p after unions there agreed to negotiate about a controversial restructuring plan. It would entail the dismissal of 4,500 Iberia workers and the wages of those remaining being cut by as much as half. The airline insists that its survival would be in jeopardy without these measures.

Iberia has been hit hard by the economic woes in Spain and, like other airlines, by the